Our dear Ava has another ear infection. In the middle of summer! Blasted kid. Leah’s patting herself on the back for recognizing the signs at an even earlier stage than she did last time Ava came down sick.
I took Ava to the doctor’s office yesterday for the official diagnosis, after which I dropped her off at daycare and drove to the nearest Hy Vee pharmacy to pick up her Augmentin prescription. While I roamed the aisles, waiting for the meds, I picked up a two-pack of Krazy Glue and a pair of swimming goggles. The glue was for a small home repair, and the goggles were to surprise Ava with when I saw her after daycare; she’d worn a pair last time she want to the pool, and she loved putting her face in the water and looking around beneath the surface.
The doc at Hy Vee said I needed to start the medicine ASAP, so I went by daycare on the way back to work with the hope of catching Ava after lunch and before her nap. She was just finishing up when I arrived, and I gave her a dose of the antibiotic. The spoon applicator left a tiny little mustache on Ava’s lip; when she was done choking down the medicine, I lifted her up to give her a hug, and she buried her little face on my shoulder. Before I could stop her, she’d left a tiny white smile on my black polo. I rubbed her back as I held her and explained that I needed to get back to work. She fussed a bit, but one of the daycare workers brought her out on the porch so she could wave goodbye. She likes it when I honk the horn, and she held up three fingers to let me know how many toots she expected. I obliged, then drove back to the office.
Throughout the afternoon, I’d occasionally catch a glimpse of that little stain on my shirt and momentarily be annoyed with whatever had caused it before I remembered it was from Ava. I ached a bit for my little girl, whose sickness — albeit very minor in the grand scheme of sickness — made her cranky and tired, a bit listless, and prone to snuggle.
Leah’s office is full-to-overflowing with framed pictures of our daughter. Ava peers out seemingly from every corner of the cubicle. I rarely look at the three pictures of Ava that Leah had me put in my cube; I don’t find myself idly looking around long enough to appreciate them, I suppose. But that little stain gave me a taste of what it must be like down in Leah’s world, where constant visual reminders of Ava brighten an otherwise austere matte box.